by Sofie Ryan
“But that hair was unfortunate.” She sighed and shook her head. “I did work it into the conversation that I believe hair is not necessarily a sign of virility in a man.” She gave me a sly smile. “But you know what they say about men with big feet—don’t you, dear?”
Behind me Mac made a strangled sound like a dead car battery failing to turn over.
“What do they say about men with big feet?” I asked, knowing I was going to regret the question.
“They wear big shoes.” She laughed, then patted my arm and headed for the back room.
After work I took Elvis home and changed into my running clothes. The cat climbed up on the chair I kept for him by the window, looked outside at the wind blowing the snow around and then turned to look over his shoulder at me. It might have been my imagination, but it almost looked as though he gave a little shiver.
“I’m going to the track,” I said.
He yawned.
“Why is it no one ever wants to go running with me?” I asked.
He yawned again.
My favorite shoes were at the back of the closet by the front door. The laces of the left shoe seemed to be caught up on something, and I knelt down to unsnag it.
“I could have gotten a dog, you know,” I said. “Maybe a great big German shepherd. German shepherds like to run.”
A furry black face seemed to materialize in front of me. Elvis stared at me unblinkingly, his way of expressing how ridiculous replacing him with a dog would be.
“Okay,” I said. “So I’m not really going to replace you with a dog.”
Satisfied, he turned around and headed for the bedroom.
“But I could,” I called over my shoulder.
“Merow,” he answered without looking back.
I ran three miles, faster than my usual pace, using my frustration to drive my legs. About two laps from finishing, I looked up to see Nick standing by the doors, holding two cardboard takeout cups. He smiled as I ran by and lifted one of the cups in a mock toast to me. I really hoped they held hot chocolate and that one of them was for me. I held up two fingers to signify two more laps and he nodded.
I was ready to slow down. I should have slowed down, but something about Nick standing there watching made me keep up the pace until the very last step.
“I’m tired just watching you,” he said, walking over to me as I stretched by the railing.
“You’re welcome to join me anytime,” I said, raising an eyebrow in invitation. “I could train you.”
“You could kill me,” he said, handing me one of the takeout cups, which was hot chocolate with marshmallows half-melted on top. I wasn’t crazy about whipped cream on my cocoa, but I loved marshmallows.
“Wait a minute,” I said after taking a sip. “This is from McNamara’s.” I eyed him suspiciously. “What do you want?” Glenn used steamed milk, sugar, cocoa and melted chocolate in his hot chocolate. It tasted rich and decadent and not at all like something made with hot water and powder from a paper packet.
Nick gave me that little-boy look that he’d been using to get out of trouble since he actually was a little boy. “Hey, I just wanted to do something nice for you. You’re so suspicious.”
“Well, thank you,” I said. I took another sip of the hot chocolate. It was good—chocolaty and not too sweet. “But you’re so transparent, your head may as well be a giant round fishbowl. What’s up? Spill.”
“Please keep this under your hat,” he said, his expression suddenly serious.
I nodded, wondering what I was swearing myself to silence over.
“Liz called the bakery the night Lily died.”
“Damn!” I whispered. I turned away for a moment and then looked back at Nick. “I take it she didn’t tell you or Michelle when you talked to her.”
“No, she didn’t,” he said. “You know I don’t think that Liz had anything to do with Lily’s death, but . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
I shook my head and wrapped my hands around the cup to warm them. “This kind of thing makes her look bad.”
Nick nodded.
“I’ll talk to her,” I said, although I wasn’t sure how exactly I was going to urge Liz to tell the police something I wasn’t even supposed to know about.
“The Angels are on the case,” I said, mostly to change the subject. I watched his face over the top of my cup. “I couldn’t come up with any way to dissuade them.”
He gave me a wry smile. “I know. Mom called me. I know you tried.” He shook his head. “She also told me that if I gave you a hard time about it, she’d use a certain photo of me in a”—he gestured with his free hand—“sort of loaded diaper as her Christmas card next year.”
I crossed an arm over my midsection and tipped my head to one side to study him. “Your mother plays hardball,” I said.
“Yes, she does,” he said with a smile.
“So that’s why you brought me this.” I held up my cup and then took another sip from it. “It’s a bribe.”
“Guilty as charged,” he said with a shrug.
I wrinkled my nose at him. “I really need to see that photo of you before I can promise anything.”
“How about having supper with me instead? That would get me some more brownie points.”
His cell phone buzzed then. He handed me his cup and fished in his pocket, pulling it out and studying the screen. “Hang on a second,” he said, taking a few steps away from me.
I sipped my hot chocolate and waited. The call took less than a minute. Nick walked back to me, putting his cell back in his pocket. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to go. Rain check on supper?”
“Sure,” I said. I handed him his cup. “And I’ll talk to Liz.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll walk you out.”
I gestured at the cubbies on the end wall. “I have to get my coat and boots. You go ahead.”
“Okay,” he said, zipping his jacket and pulling on his gloves. “I’ll see you Thursday night.” He rolled his eyes. “Assuming no one dies and I don’t get called in to work.”
I nodded. “We’ll save you a seat.”
He left and I walked over to the cubbies, stopping to stretch my calves again before I switched my running shoes for boots.
I came out of the doors to the track just as Michelle got to the top of the stairs from the main level.
“Hi,” I said.
She stopped on the top step. “Hi. Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you about something.”
“Sure,” I said. “Have you eaten yet? We could have supper if you have time.”
Her expression turned cautious. “Are you cooking?” she asked as we started down.
“Would it be bad if I were?” I said, working to keep my expression serious.
Her mouth moved before she answered. “Cooking was never your strength,” she finally said.
“I could be a lot better cook now than I was when we were teenagers,” I said. Michelle and I had just reconnected after a very long period of estrangement. She had no way of knowing I still couldn’t cook any better than I had when we were fifteen. Back then she’d helped me bury more than one of my cooking creations in my grandmother’s backyard.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you?” she asked. Her clear green eyes stayed locked on my face, and after a few seconds I felt a tiny twinge of sympathy for any suspect that had ever been questioned by her.
I made a face. “Rose has been trying to teach me.”
“So that’s no?” she said.
“That’s no.”
She pushed back the sleeve of her jacket and looked at the heavy gold watch she was wearing on her left arm. There was something familiar about it, but I couldn’t place it. Michelle hadn’t worn the watch when we were teenagers. She hadn’t worn any watch at all. But
it still looked familiar.
“Actually, I don’t have a lot of time,” she said. She gestured at the main level ice surface behind her. “Is it okay if we just go sit inside where they’re practicing and talk? The heat’ll be on.”
The TV was on the timer so Elvis would be able to watch Jeopardy!. He had to be the show’s most faithful viewer. I had no idea why. It was just one of his little quirks I’d discovered since he and Sam had conspired to put us together.
“Sure,” I said.
Michelle and I were still building a friendship that had derailed—although I hadn’t known why—when we were fifteen. It had been only last fall when I’d found out she’d heard my thoughtless comment to Nick that I’d wished her father, who had just been sentenced to jail for embezzlement, was the one who was dead, instead of my own father, who had died when I was small. She hadn’t stayed around long enough to hear me take the words back less than a minute after, and when her father died two weeks later, she hadn’t been able to forgive me. I was glad that we were working on a new friendship. I’d missed her. Even though Jess and I had become very close, Michelle—like Nick—was a connection to my childhood. I was very glad to have it back.
There were maybe a dozen people watching the boys’ high school hockey team scrimmage. Michelle and I took seats in the top row of one of the end sections. She unzipped her jacket and stuffed her gloves in her pockets. In her cream cable-knit sweater with her hair pulled back in a high ponytail, she looked so much like the teenage girl she used to be.
“I know you’ve gone through it more than once,” she said, “but please, tell me again about Liz and Lily in front of the bakery. Did you see anyone? Did anyone stop on the sidewalk or come out of a store?”
I told the story again, noticing that she seemed to be particularly interested in who might have seen the confrontation. Was that a good thing? Was she looking for witnesses to corroborate our story?
I shifted sideways in my seat. “Michelle, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job, but you’re looking in the wrong place if you think that Liz had anything to do with Lily’s death.”
“I know,” she said.
Chapter 9
“You know?”
She nodded. “Yes.” Her phone buzzed then. She held up a finger and retrieved the phone from her pocket. After glancing at the screen, she put it back and smiled at me. “Sorry,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“Her neighbor across the street is a techie. He has a security system with cameras mounted outside his house.” She held up her right thumb and finger about an inch and a half apart. “Tiny little things. They scan the yard and the street every thirty seconds. A little weird if you ask me, but perfectly legal. They caught Liz coming and going, and she wasn’t gone long enough to get to the bakery and kill Lily.”
I felt the last of the tension I hadn’t really been able to run out drain from my body. “I’m really glad to hear that,” I said. “Thanks for telling me.”
Michelle smiled. “You’re welcome.”
I let out a sigh of relief. Liz was off the hook, and I didn’t need to have that conversation about the phone call she’d made to Lily that I wasn’t even supposed to know about.
“Sarah, you probably have more influence with Liz than pretty much anyone,” Michelle said, the smile fading. “Could you remind her what a bad idea it is to keep things from the police—anytime—but especially in a case like this?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, even though I knew what she was going to say. Had Michelle somehow managed to read my mind?
“Liz made a phone call to the bakery the night Lily confronted the two of you, the night she was killed. I’m guessing it was just to apologize again, but she didn’t tell us.” She made a face. “Not very smart of her.”
“I’ll talk to her,” I said, “but I’m not making any promises.”
Then it struck me: If Michelle knew that Liz wasn’t a suspect, then why had she wanted to hear my story about her encounter with Lily? “You think maybe the real killer was there, outside the bakery somewhere, and saw what happened?” I said.
She just looked at me with those calm green eyes. She didn’t say a word.
I waited. She still didn’t say anything. “Can’t you at least wave your scarf at me if I’m on the right track?” I asked.
“You mean like semaphore with accessories?” she said.
I laughed, picturing her spelling out “yes” or “no” in the air with the fringed ends of her scarf.
Michelle tipped her head to one side and regarded me, a smile starting at the corners of her mouth. “I’m not Nick. Your charm doesn’t work on me.”
I laughed. “Trust me. It doesn’t work on Nick, either.”
“Are you sure?” she said. “Because I saw him on his way out of the rink tonight. When I said I was looking for you, he wanted to know why. I thought he was going to start beating on his chest with his fists.”
I couldn’t help laughing even harder. “I think that has more to do with the fact that Nick thinks of me as family than with my so-called charm.”
Michelle rolled her eyes. “Of course.”
Below us the scrimmage seemed to be over. The players were gathering at the opposite end of the rink. “So how long have you been involved with the hot-lunch program?” Michelle asked.
“I took over from Gram when she went on her honeymoon.” Down on the ice the coach had the boys doing speed drills. “Sam and Lily and Glenn—plus a couple of restaurant owners—have done most of the work. Glenn bailed me out the other morning when Lily was . . .” I didn’t finish the sentence. I cleared my throat. “Have you heard whether or not Caroline is going to keep the bakery?”
“You mean is she going to sell to North by West for the development?”
“Actually, I didn’t, but do you think she will?”
Michelle shrugged. “I don’t know.”
I wondered if she thought Lily’s death had anything to do with her opposition to the North Landing project. I knew there was no point in asking.
Michelle reached for her jacket and pulled it on. I zipped up mine.
“Let’s get together sometime soon,” I said. “Sometime when we don’t have to talk about one of your cases.”
“I’d like that,” she said with a smile.
We hugged. It was still a little awkward, but it got less so every time I saw her.
Jeopardy! was just ending when I got home. Elvis was on his favorite chair in front of the television. I peeled off my running clothes and had a shower, letting the water work on my stiff shoulders for a moment. My brother had talked me into a low-flow showerhead that somehow used air to make the spray of water feel more intense. I had no idea how it worked. But I liked it for loosening my muscles after running.
The phone was ringing when I came out of the bathroom. I sprinted for it, doing a hurdle over Elvis, who was sprawled in the middle of the hallway.
“Don’t get up,” I called over my shoulder to him.
His response was to roll onto his back and paw the air like he was in some very slow-paced exercise class.
It was Sam. “Hey, kiddo,” he said. “Are you going to be there for the next fifteen minutes or so?”
“I’m going to be here for the rest of the night,” I said, grabbing a clean pair of socks from the bed and pulling them on my bare feet.
“Then is it okay if I stop in for a minute?”
“Sure.”
“See you in a few, then.”
I got dressed in leggings and a heavy sweatshirt and decided to throw a load of towels in the washer. It was closer to twenty minutes before Sam rang my bell. I opened the door to find him standing next to a tall, blanket-wrapped . . . something and Alfred Peterson.
“Hi,” I said. I pointed at the bundle. It was close to five feet high, the old
wool blankets lashed together with elastic bungee cords. “What is that?” Elvis was peering around my ankles.
“It’s, uh . . .” Sam swiped a hand over his mouth. He was wearing a gray hand-knitted hat—probably made by Rose—and bits of his salt-and-pepper hair were poking out from underneath. He shrugged. “I don’t know what it is. I just loaded it and drove it here.”
Mr. P. leaned sideways and smiled at him. “Thank you, Sammy. I’ve got this.”
Sam pointed through the open doorway. “You want this inside?”
Mr. P. hesitated. “Well, if it’s not too much trouble,” he said.
Sam shook his head. Then he wrapped his arms around the blanket-wrapped . . . thing and muscled it into my living room, setting it in the middle of the floor. He put an arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. “Enjoy, kiddo,” he said.
I closed the door behind him. “Alfred, what is this?” I asked, gesturing at the blanket-wrapped bundle that seemed to be taking up all the extra space in my living room.
“It’s a thank-you,” the elderly man said.
“For what?”
“For giving Rosie the apartment. For sharing your home with her.”
“You don’t have to thank me for that,” I said, wondering what on earth he’d done. “I love her. I don’t want her living somewhere that isn’t safe.”
“Yes, I do,” he said.
He was still bundled up in several layers against the cold. “Why don’t you take your coat off and have a seat?” I said.
“Just for a minute,” he said. “I’m meeting the boys for poker later.”
He pulled off his navy blue cap and unwound the long scarf from around his neck. I took them and his heavy woolen overcoat. Underneath he was wearing a bulky striped sweater and another, thinner scarf. He could have led an expedition to the North Pole and not been cold.
Mr. P. took a seat on the sofa, and Elvis immediately settled at his feet. “Sarah, did you know that I was married for fifty-two years?”
I sat down in the chair opposite him. “No. I didn’t,” I said.
“My wife’s name was Kate. She was beautiful and feisty—like Rose.” He smiled. “When she died, I thought I’d never meet anyone else I could love. I didn’t even want to. And then Rose came into my life.”
